BOOK REVIEW - NORTHERN PROTESTANTS ON SHIFTING GROUND BY SUSAN MCKAY

 

 

Northern Protestants On Shifting Ground

 

by

 

Susan McKay

 

The Blackstaff Press

Published 2021

https://blackstaffpress.com/northern-protestants-on-shifting-ground-9781780732640

 

I was raised a Catholic in Belfast from the mid-1950s.  From whatever age I became conscious of differences in religions and affiliations, I was aware of the notion of tribe. There was us and there were Protestants.  There were the Falls and Shankill roads. There was orange and green.  There was the tricolour and union flags.  There was graffiti to mark territory, and all sorts of other ballyhoo to keep “us and them” distinct from each other, and to a large extent, separated.

 

But, and this only really became apparent when I was reading this splendid book, I was never once told to be fearful of or frightened by Protestants.  There was no inherent bias in my upbringing.  No one told me outright or blatantly that I shouldn’t mix with “them ‘uns’.  The notion and reality of division seemed to be a given.  You might not have wanted to take sides but by the very fact you came from Northern Ireland, your birth identity was stamped inside your head.  A lot of it was and is nonsense, of course.

 

So, along comes Susan McKay’s book, Northern Protestants On Shifting Ground, a book that weaves around a hundred interviews mostly with ordinary people into a tapestry of honest commentaries on how Protestants are trying to steady themselves and their lives on the title’s shifting ground and pondering what the future holds.

 

Interviewees include religious and political leaders, former security force members, ex-paramilitaries, victims and survivors of many incidents from the Troubles, community and business leaders, students, writers and more, as fair a cross-section as a reader and analyser could wish for.

 

Big subjects are tackled including the fall-out from Brexit including worries about the border and future polls on Irish unity as well as concerns about social justice and the impact of change on everyday lives.  The controversial debates about how to deal with the crimes and atrocities of the past, to erase guilt, give blanket amnesties, draw a line, are all piling on the pressure for Protestants (and Catholics too) to be realistic about identity and humanity over weather-beaten tribal genes.  It is complex and not as easy to resolve as some in Westminster think.

 

I thought this book would be an endurance test of the same old bickering, wait-a-wee-minute, dug-in-heels stuff that has tainted Northern Ireland, but it was nothing of the sort.

 

I was enlightened and greatly impressed by the openness and honesty of the interviewees and by Susan McKay’s skilful handing of the material.  As she says in her conclusion: “I think of the valiant people who have given me their ‘vulnerable testimony’ for this book, and I am grateful, as always, for open hearts and open minds.”

 

Open hearts and open minds.  That’s got to be the future, surely!

 

An excellent book on every level that deserves the time and attention of everyone of whatever stripe and conviction who cares about the future of Northern Ireland.

26 JULY, 2021 - PRESS RELEASE - AWARD TRIUMPH FOR THE MONO TRIO FEATURING STEPHEN DUNWOODY

Here is the official Press Release from The Mono Trio featuring Stephen Dunwoody.  I have known and loved Stephen's music for several years now.  He is as close to unique as you can get in his creations. (Put his name in the search box of this blog to read past posts I have written.  This latest project, having had a sneak preview of some of it, blew my mind in subject matter and performance.

 

Tinseltown mystery inspires award winning song

 

Belfast jazz and blues band The Mono Trio has won Best Jazz Song at this year’s Rome Music Video Festival.

 

Their song ‘17575 Pacific Coast Highway’ pays homage to 1930s film star Thelma Todd whose death at age 29 sparked one of Hollywood’s great mysteries.

 

Also known as the Ice Cream Blond, Todd was born 115 years ago on July 29, 1906.

 

Up until her suspicious death just before Christmas 1935 she starred in over 120 films, including Laurel and Hardy and Marx Brothers comedies. It was the Golden age of Hollywood and Thelma was one of the few who successfully crossed from the silent era to the talkies. 

 

Thelma Todd had strong links to Northern Ireland and she often spoke about her Irish heritage; her father John Todd was from Comber in Country Down before emigrating to Massachusetts where he became a prominent city official. Sadly, he dropped dead of a heart attack just before his daughter’s first film release in 1926.

 

But it was his daughter’s death a decade later that still resonates today. Following the discovery of her lifeless body slumped at the wheel of her Lincoln convertible in a locked garage, many newspapers, including the LA Times, claimed that she had been murdered.

 

A subsequent Grand Jury however, decided that there was insufficient evidence and concluded that carbon monoxide poisoning was to blame along with ‘suicidal tendencies’. This decision has been hotly disputed ever since.

 

The authorities were accused of a shoddy investigation due to the many inconsistencies outlined throughout the hearings.

 

There was no indication that Todd was distressed in the days leading to her death. There was also the problem of her two cracked ribs and bloodied broken nose, which the coroner wrote off as somehow caused in the course of her carbon monoxide poisoning. And then there was the line-up of shady characters who had motive: her abusive ex-husband who had ties to the Mob, her business partner, his wife, and even the West Coast mafia who wanted to use her restaurant as a late-night gambling den.

 

Thelma Todd was one of the very first celebrity restaurateurs opening her sidewalk café at 17575 Pacific Coast Highway in 1933, a popular haunt for the Hollywood film glitterati and day trippers hoping to see a famous face. 

 

17575 Pacific Coast Highway is, in fact, the title of The Mono Trio’s award-winning song. 

 

The band’s singer and pianist Stephen Dunwoody explains: “A few years ago I came across the name Thelma Todd when I worked as a journalist. At that time the Laurel and Hardy fan club The Sons of the Desert were trying to trace Thelma Todd’s relatives who lived in or near Comber. 

 

“Several years later, the name came back to me when we were putting songs together for an album entitled ‘Film Noir’. The Thelma Todd mystery just seemed a perfect fit.”

 

Stephen adds, “Although her death was almost 85 years ago, writers still discuss the case. What I thought was particularly sad, and something that completely rules out suicide, was that Thelma had bought around 100 Christmas presents that had been wrapped and ready to send to family, friends and staff at the Hal Roach Studios where she was popular with everyone she came in contact with.”

 

Mono Trio’s song and accompanying video will be released on the band’s website www.themonotrio.com this week to coincide with the movie star’s birthday.

 

The album ‘Film Noir’ will be released this autumn and features band members John Convery on double bass and Graeme Arthur on drums.

 

View video here on HD www.themonotrio.com

Or here https://youtu.be/XLxct1dDPmw

 

Notes:

The Mono Trio are also in the running for the Moscow and Paris music and film awards later this year. They play regularly at Bert’s Jazz Bar.

They released a live recording of songs by Nina Simone in 2020.

 

Contact: Stephen Dunwoody 07810 264345 

BOOK REVIEW: ONE MAN, TWO WORLDS BY RICHARD NEEDHAM

 

One Man, Two Worlds

A Memoir of a Businessman in Politics

by 

Richard Needham

 

The Blackstaff Press

Published 2021

https://blackstaffpress.com/one-man-two-worlds-9781780733159

 

Of all the literary genres, memoir is my favourite.  I like people’s life stories, even if they are not always great reads.  Of the many memoirs I have read throughout my life, some have been insufferable ‘look how great I am’ puff books, some have sagged in the middle and become plodding chores, some I have not looked forward to have been surprisingly satisfying ultimately and some I have looked forward to ended up as damp squibs. 

 

But when a really good memoir appears and hooks you in from the beginning and carries you along with pace, wit, anecdotes, interesting facts, insights and a healthy dose of self-deprecation, you have discovered literary gold.

 

Such a book is One Man, Two Worlds by Richard Needham (that is Sir Richard Francis Needham, 6th Earl of Kilmorey: “I came from a family of barely solvent aristocrats.”).

Eton-educated, Needham has been, amongst other political posts, an MP, Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Jim Prior), Parliamentary Under- Secretary of State, Northern Ireland serving Margaret Thatcher and John Major and Minister of State for Trade under Major.  His business experience includes running his own companies and stints working with James Dyson, GEC and Gleneagles healthcare.  

 

In both of these worlds, he was a globetrotting bundle of energy, full of vision, ideas and charm, championing the Theory Y style of leadership and management (encouraging optimistic, positive and inclusive teams) rather than Theory X, a style that focuses on a more authoritarian and controlling approach with heavy-handedness from the top.

 

Of the many interesting chapters in this superb book, Needham’s work in Northern Ireland, two stints over seven years or so, held my personal interest as a Belfast kid.  He worked hard to find ways to regenerate battered Belfast.  A challenging initiative was the development of what became known as CastleCourt shopping centre in Royal Avenue.  It opened in 1990, but during construction, progress was disrupted by IRA bombs.  The bombs continued in the years after opening, with a plague of incendiary devices disrupting trade.  CastleCourt is still operating, attracting around 17 million shoppers a year.  The tenacity of Needham and others paid off.

 

In one of the chapters, Studying the Past, Needham portrays four men in particular who “must be largely held responsible for the chaos, division and civil war that have impoverished the island over the last hundred and fifty years.  The four must take their place in the hall of infamy.  They have made a divide deeper, bitterer, bloodier, more poisonous and infinitely harder to resolve.”  His appraisals of Edward Carson, Eamon de Valera, Gerry Adams and Ian Paisley are punchy and highly critical: “If there is one trait they all share, it is cruelty.”

 

Richard Needham has written a thoroughly great memoir that shows his humanity, humour and determination.  He highlights successes and failures, his drive to overcome frustrations and obstacles and his fearlessness as a straight-talker, applauding the heroes in his life and condemning the villians.

 

As I finished the memoir, I was saddened to remember that we don’t seem to have a Theory Y Richard Needham-type to play a part in current politics.  This book has the power to inspire the next generation of leaders in business and politics to encourage optimism, positiveness and inclusivity.

 

 

Book Review -Have A Good Week Till Next Week - British Wrestlers of the TV Era by John Lister

 Have A Good Week… Till Next Week

British Wrestlers of the TV Era

by

John Lister

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Have-Good-Week-Till-Next/dp/1983116246/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=John+Lister&qid=1620742533&sr=8-1

 

BLURB

 

For six years, the stars of Britain’s ITV wrestling told their stories to Fighting Spirit Magazine’s John Lister. Now these in-depth biographies of more than 50 grapplers come together in the ultimate history of the ‘World of Sport’ era. From Adrian Street to William Regal, from Tiny Tom Thumb to Giant Haystacks, these are the true stories of amazing lives in and out of the ring. 

AUTHOR 

John Lister is a professional freelance writer who has been writing for wrestling publications since 1990. Author of Slamthology, Turning The Tables: The Story Of Extreme Championship Wrestling, and Purodyssey: A Tokyo Wrestling Diary, he formerly worked for Power Slam and The Fight Network and is now a regular contributor to Fighting Spirit Magazine. 

 

It is around 1964.  I was ten-years-old.  Most Saturdays I would take the bus on my own (it was a different era) to Belfast city centre and walk all the way to the New Lodge Road to visit my Granny Rachel’s house and Aunt Sally’s next door.  They were sisters.  I have many fond memories of those trips and visits but one in particular stands out.  My Aunt Sally was a constant cook and she loved watching professional wrestling on television.

I recall a big bowl of marrowfat peas, generous amounts of salt and vinegar, thick slices of bread lathered with butter and a big blue-striped mug of what is now known as strong builder’s tea, all consumed while watching the wrestling.  Aunt Sally, every now and then, passing from living room to scullery and back again, would shout or shake a fist at some villainous grappler, while commentator Kent Walton described the action.

 

******

John Lister has written a fabulous and fascinating history of the glory days of British television wrestling, 1955 to 1988.  Have a Good Week… is a collection of wrestler profiles, some I remember very well, others knew to me.  The book provides insights into the lives of wrestlers and the world of wrestling, the individuals trying to find their niche and promotors’ dealings behind-the-scenes.  It was a world of sometimes gruelling tour schedules, piss-poor wages for several grapplers, pre-arranged bouts, friendships, rivalries, heroes and villains, all in the name of entertainment, and it was an extremely popular sport.  This was before the hyper-showbiz, super-athletic, epic US-style of wresting that, at heart, was and is high-octane pantomime stuff.

I can’t forget the flamboyant Adrian Street, camp but skilled in the ring, booed, hissed at and cheered depending on his performance.  Big Daddy was an audience favourite, not the greatest advertisement for body/mass ratio, who depended mostly on size and weight to crush opponents.  His most famous opponent was the truly enormous, Giant Haystacks, who like his rival, often flattened the poor souls trying to topple him. 

Away from the mountain men, there were fit and fast athletes who could demonstrate quick and efficient moves, much to the delight of audiences.  There were also those out to inject some comedy into the matches and others who were downright dirty players, getting up all sorts when the referee wasn’t looking.  Promotors tried to keep their wrestling bills mixed to keep audiences attending and viewers watching.

I am reminded of some of the great names from those heady days; Brian Maxine, Catweazle, Jackie Pallo, Mick McManus, Jim Breaks, Johnny Saint, Kendo Nagasaki, Les Kellett, Mark Rocco, Mike Marino, Pat Roach, Marty Jones and so many more.  I would have liked more on Bert Royal and Dave Finlay, but there is more than enough history and nostalgia in this book to satisfy any fans of wrestling on TV way back when.

 

John Lister is to be applauded for this collection, riveting and compelling, a fine history of a sport that attracted millions of TV viewers every week.  This is a superb book for wrestling fans but it should appeal to a wider audience of general sports fans for its revelations of real iife outside, trying to earn a crust.

 

Never mind two falls or two submissions, this is a knockout book.  Outstanding work.

 

 

 

PIPER

 Piper

 

It was 

in the wind,

on the wind, 

of the wind,

a tune playing,

inhaled by the coastline

from somewhere out there,

from the land or from the sea,

a piper playing slow music

inside the ocean’s angry noise,

melody fading in and out

like foreign radio in the sixties,

in the wind, 

on the wind, 

of the wind.

 

OU - OWE YOU

OU (1987 – 1992) – Owe You

 

Years ago, my weary Open University tutor,
when asked to elaborate on the class struggle,
pondered a while, looked profound
raised his head, closed his book,
gave us his professorial look,
stood up, took a deep breath and sighed:
"All I can say on the class-crass debate,
in all my teaching years I've found,
no matter how we argue the toss,

what the fuck, the world still goes round." 

NEW FOR 2021 - A DOZEN QUESTIONS - SPECIAL GUEST: EILEEN CARNEY HULME

 

A DOZEN QUESTIONS

Special guest: Eileen Carney Hulme

Eileen Carney Hulme was born in Edinburgh and has lived and worked in many parts of the UK and in Europe as a library assistant and a tutor and practitioner of complementary therapies. She has spent the last ten years living in the north of Scotland,  enjoying big skies and deserted beaches.

Her first collection of poems, Stroking the Air, was published by Bluechrome of Bristol in 2005 and her second collection, The Space Between Rain was published by Indigo Dreams in 2010. Both collections were named in the Purple Patch Small Press Collections Awards in 2005 and 2010.

Eileen's published work has appeared in many poetry magazines, anthologies and on Internet websites.

There is much more on Eileen and her work via this link:

https://www.indigodreams.co.uk/ech-tsm/4589983025

 

Q: What is your favourite word? 

A: Love, the world needs more of it.

Q: What is your least favourite word? 

A: Carapace, have yet to read a poem and think that is the perfect word.

Q: What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally? 

A: Beach walking for all three.

Q: What turns you off? 

A: Know alls and smugness.

Q: What is your favourite song? 

A: That’s very difficult. I love so many but as a performance Bruce Springsteen singing Thunder Road at Hammersmith Odeon 1975.

Q: What is your favourite film? 

A: Again so many, will go for a classic, Casablanca.

Q: What is your favourite curse word

A: As if...

Q: What sound or noise do you love? 

A: The ocean.

Q: What sound or noise do you hate? 

A: Boy racers.

Q: What profession other than your own would you like to attempt? 

A: Musician or Astronomer.

Q: What profession would you not like to do? 

A: Politician/liar liar pants on fire.

Q: If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates? 

A: You’re always early, come back later.

Q: Any words of encouragement for writers and writing?

A: The usual, read loads and write loads (and don’t worry about times when you are not writing) and have some self belief. Some will like your work, some won’t, and please be as supportive as you can to other writers.

Thank you for participating, Eileen.